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Now that is weird.

Quite. That is why I try to get them to notice that cheques, which are still widely used albeit much less now than they used to be, have all that information on them and nobody ever worries who will see the cheque as it travels around. Anyhow it is up to the seller what they will take and hopefully now that PayPal for purchases is being used (which affords protection for the buyer who may know nothing about the seller other than an email address), the misunderstandings are all resolved and I am looking forward to receiving a very nice seat post.

In which case I'll take it. Payment sent.

Hope 16 hole front hub. These are unusual and I do not think Hope have made any for a while although they list a matching rear hub on their website (the fifth photo shows one of these). My scales say 126g.

I bought this to get the 32 hole rim it was attached to (every other hole in the rim had had a little square of sticky tape put over it). There was no sign that any part of the wheel I bought had any use. There are a few faint spots on the aluminium that can be seen in the photos. If I get 5 minutes I may even polish these out prior to sale. Otherwise it looks and feels like new.

Prefer payment by transfer to my bank or will accept Paypal for goods otherwise.

£35 including postage within UK.

I'm out guys - Rogeroo only takes Paypal gift and will not take a bank to bank transfer even though the only details this requires are printed on every cheque issued in the UK for over 50 years. Shame as it's a nice item but there you are. Caveat Emptor.

PM now sent, sorry guys I will be going through with this it's gorgeous. Hardest thing will be deciding which bike to use it with.

Not sure why but I can't work out how to pm youy. I'm trying but otherwise can you pm me and I'll reply. Thanks.

Dibs the seat post in ti.

Perhaps we should start an "X-rays of my metal work " thread although none of mine is from car racing

True. But giving it the noise through the goose neck is one of the greatest feelings in British Motorsport.

Ps perhaps you should try harder at Lydden

I've got away with Brands and Mallory so far. Big moment at Cadwell being cut up by a muppet heading up the mountain but my worst off in the UK was probably at the reconfigured Anglesy in an M3 oh and a high side at Thruxton on an RG 500.

Dammit -no I've just been slogging away at it for 4 years. Not really into blogging it. Just thought since of you guys might like it.

Danstuff - no ROPS for me. It makes the cars look shit and what do we fasten it to?

Lucky escape there. Easy to underestimate Silverstone. Doesn't have the visual reminders of the risks like Cadwell od Pembrey but when it goes wrong it tends to go right off script.

Dropping aero engines into pre-ww1 chassis is great fun but it is difficult to do well from an engineering point of view. i like to preserve the engine so it could go back into a plane (unlikely i know but some of the engines are getting very rare, particularly the big V8s and V12s). You also have to isolate the engine from all chasis flex and twist as they usually mount on very thin cast flanges. In an aircraft the plane tends to roll or pitch rather than send twisting forces through the crankcase. I have a V12 here that makes 900plus HP and more importantly 1200 lb/ft of torque at idle. it has a cast aluminium crankcase with a flat flange running the length of the engine on each side that is less than 20mm thick. if you bolt that to your pre 1918 chassis you will be expecting it to act as a stiffener for the front third of a very floppy steel frame!

The 39 car: Head is similar to the cast iron one. Fortunately we have drawings. Patterns are made in wood and resin. Lots of them. Some of them are for molding cores to go inside the head others give the outside shape. They all fit together like one of those old school wooden puzzles that you make into a cube etc. I think pattern design and making is some of the hardest stuff to get right that I have had to teach myself / learn to understand enough to talk to the guys that do it all day every day.

For actual casting we use NewPro Foundry in Hayes. brilliant attitude to nutters like me. Machining - I do it, some of it is done by a neighbour & friend who is a retired tool maker, other stuff gets farmed out to recommended specialists.

We are working to achieve factory power output - that's quite a bit, more than twice the production road cars. Also the factory cars were originally designed to last out Le Mans. By 1940 they would have been obsolete so long term durability was not an issue.

There are very few "modern" materials in my engine. Most of it is an exercise in blueprinting. I suspect some of our work will give greater long term reliability and or durability due to the precision with which thinks are being fitted. One of the problems with using old parts is that a failure (say a con rod) can be pretty catastrophic. So we have arrow rods and forged pistons. We are still on original compression, capacity and rev limits but we expect, even with hard racing, to get a few thousand miles between inspections. the rods are on modern shell bearings but the mains are old school white metal. We have added modern full flow oil filtration. The engine already had full pressure feed and an oil cooler but no filter. When I have raced cars without filtration in the past the only way I have got good bottom end life is to change the oil after every race meeting.I still do that with my vintage motorbikes. Having spent many £ks on this engine I do not see any point in not having a full flow filter.

Today's jobs : Decide how to go about making a new reproduction drop arm for the steering box - the old one and spares all showing cracks when magnafluxed.

I stripped down the water pump to check everything over. All looks pretty good, ordered new ball races (fortunately a common size). Now I have to work out if we can get a modern seal to stop it dripping water. The original system had a steel shaft running through a long bronze bush with grease being pumped between the 2 to stop water seeping out. I have yet to see a car on which this system reliably prevents water coming down the bush and on my engine when that happens it goes all over the ball races.

I've just done London Dubai Singapore Sydney Christchurch return on Emirates.

No problems with customs anywhere with my Enigma although it was spotlessly clean in case they checked. They didn't.

30kg standard Luggage allowance. I used a semi hard bag - stuffed it full of clothes around the bike plus I had another bag. Warning - it does not fit in a standard car boot so you have to get a mini bus type cab in Singapore.

Biggest hassle - Emirates code share with Qantas. Qantas are virtually broke and are currently one of the worlds worst airlines ( from service rather than a safety point of view). This is particularly irksome when you have just enjoyed the delights of Emirates which is one of the world's best.

Ps. Don't forget to deflate the tyres. I went to the garden centre and bought a few meters of plastic which is wrapped around my bike and taped into a big loose sac. This stopped anything scratching my frame and meant there was no risk of any residual oil getting on my clothes.

I'll take both 11 speed mechs, the Athena brifters and the carbon cranks. PM me a total price including postage to Hampshire and I'll transfer money to your account.

and me now I have noticed it!

Rossin and Hyperons.

Overnight have thought of a solution to the Hyperon / Cervelo fit issues - I'm going to put the Hyperons on my Koga.

Meanwhile I am trying to decide if I can live with the ice blue Rossin and put a few bits on it today that I had lying around. It will not be keeping the Hyperons.

Yes it was there. Red with huge short drain pipe exhausts.

If you are a Morgan fan you'll have heard of / be able to find Tony Lees. He is a great driver and amongst other things owns and races one of my old cars - 1913 Vauxhall with a 12 litre V8 from a wWW1 SPAD plane.

The cars are essentially modified Delahaye 135s. It is a complicated story. The stroke was shortened to reduce capacity to below 3 litres so the Delages could race in the 3 litre class leaving Delahaye to fight Bugatti and Lagonda et al for overall honours without the threat of being beaten by one of their own cars wearing another's badge.

It didn't go quite that way though. Delage led for much of the race until the exhaust manifold casting broke letting the Bugatti through for overall honours, Delage 2nd and first in class.

There were only two racing 3 litres both survive but are rarely seen in public. Neither is as it was pre war. Road going ones were also based on Delahaye 135 but are also very rare. Post war 5 single seaters were built and 4 survive. Under the bodywork they are very like the pre war cars.

My car was found in France. It was a chassis axles and engine. It is within a few numbers of the Le Mans cars and must have been one of the last ones produced before the outbreak of war. We don't know what body it had but probably a 4 door saloon. We have done what the factory would have done - taken a chassis from the production cars and built a racing car. The hard part has been trying to make it exactly as the factory racers in 1939.

Rear axle is a special competition one with a lot of alloy casting replacing cast iron. Live axle on semi elliptic leaf springs. Gear box is an MK35 Cotal. Engine is a 3 litre straight 6 almost identical dimensions to an Austin Healey 3000. Rev limit 5500. Compression 10.2:1. Arrow rods and Ross pistons. Cylinder head is aluminium - the car had a cast iron one when found we made a new one.

Front suspension is independent the design is known as System Talbot and was used by a number of cars including Talbot Lago. Shocks are Repusseau friction. Again these are unique to the 2 racers so they had to be made for my car.

Fuel tank is large and is shaped around the back axle - yes we had to make one of those.

Couple of departures from original to make it a bit user friendly on the road / legal for racing. There is a mount inside the tail so I can carry a spare wheel and there is a plumbed in fire extinguisher - HD44 Solex carbs are legendary for their fire starting abilities.

Finished weight ready to drive should be sub 900kg and top speed 130 mph+

Bollocks. Bought a nice pair of Campy Hyperons on here. Cleaned them up, bought and stretched a pair of tubs and an 11 speed cassette. Today I fitted everything up. Front wheel great. Rear wheel in, give it a spin - what the hell is that noise, shit the spokes it the NDS chain stay. Internet checked - Hyperons not compatible with Cervelo S3. I'll sleep on it and see if I can come up with a solution.

Sorry. i can turn into a bit of a bore when I'm in the middle of obsessing about car projects.

We had some prewar French wheel centre lock nuts made - its not just the inscription but rather the whole shape and look of the French ones that are different.

Also a picture of a 1/43 die cast model I managed to buy. Who makes models of an obscure car - production total 2? Whoever did it it is actually very good in most respects although some bits are just wrong.

Couple of pictures of bodywork being test fitted over the chassis and wooden bucks - that was a while ago. Bucks are all gone now and it just has its metal frame to hold the paneling. Bonnet was left unfinished and no under trays because it needs all the running gear installed and the springs set to the final height first so that we get the clearances right. Also since these photos it has had radiator and oil coolers made and fitted, fuel tanks, seats and upholstery, dashboard and instruments all done (got very lucky and found a set of blue faced matching instruments in French made by OS.)...

Can't seem to pm you. Can you send me one or email to mikecrehan@hotmail.com

Oh yeah baby that's mine. PM sent. I want it just for the paint and the lugs. PM sent.

Pulp Friction